Though Shalt Write Tests

If you are not writing tests, none of the rest of these matter. You must always start somewhere, and getting some tests is better than not having any.

Though Shalt Prove Bugs Exist With Tests Before Fixing Them

A bug report is one of the best times to write a test. And one of the worst feelings as a developer is fixing the same bug over and over again. Test driven development isn’t something that always works for features, but test driven bug fixing always leads to a concrete issue being fixed.

Though Shalt Aim For High Test Coverage

You don’t need to get 100% test coverage for almost everything. It’s often an unachievable target for legacy software projects, but that doesn’t mean we can’t aim for high coverage. Aiming for high coverage allows you to take calculated risks on where the return on writing a test is low

Though Shalt Setup Test Processes Whenever Setting Up A Project

This should be as innate a process as possible and you should never have an excuse to not write tests. By having your test infrastructure as a part of your boilerplate, you reduce the friction of writing tests and it can be a normal part of your development.

Though Shalt Understand the Code You Test

It’s unrealistic to expect someone to write tests without knowing how and why code works the way it does. It’s why it’s best not to go back and add tests to old code but instead to get in the habit of writing new tests for new code or when changing existing code.

Thou Shalt Never Trust The User

User entered data is one of the most important things to test since it’s something that is going to be hard to predict and the area where you have the greatest likelihood of a security issue. Tests will help safeguard your application.

A QA engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 99999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a ueicbksjdhd.

First real customer walks in and asks where the bathroom is. The bar bursts into flames, killing everyone.

— Brenan Keller (@brenankeller) November 30, 2018

Though Shalt Never Merge Code That Hasn’t Been Tested

Auomated tests aren’t perfect. There is no substitite to a human doing a real test, but when you get a high amount of test coverage, you can deploy with higher confidence without using as much human testing time.

Though Shalt Never Delete or Ignore Tests Without Removing Code

Deleting or ignoring tests without removing code is tantamount to having never written the tests in the first place. If you’re having problems with your tests, you are better off fixing them since…

Though Shalt Never Allow Flaky Tests to Remain Flaky

Inconsistent failures should be fixed as tests that provide false failures can reduce your trust in your tests. Some of the areas it’s important to consider when testing include anything related to time and anything that relies on the network.

Though Shalt Never Trust The User

Seriusly. This is important enough to mention twice since user input is the most likely thing to cause a problem for your application.

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